I act only for the money: Anurag Kashyap

Anurag Kashyap takes over as director of Aanand L Rai’s small town love story; admits he only acts for the money.

After earning his cinematic stripes with gritty dramas peppered with snappy dialogues and stylised action, Anurag Kashyap is all set to change gears. After the ouster of Sameer Sharma (Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurana) and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari (Nil Battey Sannata and Bareilly Ki Barfi), the Raman Raghav 2.0 filmmaker has taken over the reins of Aanand L Rai’s upcoming production, a love story titled Manmarziyan that had featured Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar in the lead earlier.

The collaboration came about when Anurag received a call from Aanand while he was abroad, wanting to know what he was doing. “I had a script and he asked if he could read it. He also told me about a script he had and asked if I’d like to read that. We both liked each other’s scripts,” AK tells Mirror from UP, where he is currently shooting his next directorial, Mukkabaaz, which is a Colour Yellow, Eros and Phantom collaboration.

Aanand’s script was the original draft of Manmarziyan. Now, Anurag will put his own spin on the coming-of-age love story in a non-city world scripted by Kanika Dhillon (writer of the book, Bombay Duck is a Fish). “The film will now be much younger than it was meant to be. There was no conscious decision to jump genres, I just loved the script so much that I had to do it,” Anurag asserts, pointing out that having come from one, he understand small towns, the people who live there and their relationships.

Ask him if Aanand, who’s a director himself, will be creatively involved with the film and Anurag insists that his producer gives a director his space. “We have had discussions during which I talked about how I want to do the film and he was more than happy to let me do it my way. Since it was Kanika’s script, she has been creatively involved with me a lot more. She and I have been sitting with Amit Trivedi (composer) and redoing the score but the script essentially remains the same,” he informs.

There’s also been buzz about the cast going through an overhaul as well. Anurag reveals that casting director Mukesh Chhabra is looking into it at the moment.

Anurag, however, refutes reports that he reworked the Bhavesh Joshi script last year. “We only rewrote the dialogues. (Director) Vikramaditya Motwane reworked the script with his co-writer while I was busy with Raman Raghav,” he clarifies, adding that Manmarziyan will essentially remain the same.

“It will remain Kanika’s script. Moreover, since it’s a girl’s story, I’d rather it stays a woman’s script,” he says.

Anurag’s last acting turn was as a baddie in the Sonakshi Sinha-starrer Akira. Will he return onscreen in Manmarziyan?

“I don’t like acting so much and have mostly done it for the money or when there’s been some kind of a crisis. I prefer directing movies and have got four-five projects lined up, back-to-back. I think I’m going to be busy with direction and not acting.”

Next up, he is making a horror film. “The script is done. We don’t know when we start shooting yet,” Anurag signs off.